Travel light and ship your luggage, just keep the essentials with you.

As an experienced bicyclist and mortorcyclist (I put several thousand miles on each every year), I have had my share of close calls with motor vehicles over the years. Last summer alone, I had two friends that were hit by cars and an acquaintance that was killed. The driver that killed the cyclist got a small fine of less than $200US. She and her husband were riding on a tandem bicycle, close to the right shoulder on a country road. The driver hit them so hard, that it sheared both seatposts off the bike. It was mid-morning, the sun was out, the riders were riding as close as possible to the shoulder and for some unexplained reason, the driver in his shiny corvette killed one and seriously injured the other.

Rather than giving out small penalties (seriously, less than $200 for a death!), we should be making examples of drivers that commit this kind of mayhem. Put them in jail or make them pay a substantial fine (how much is a life worth?). We need to be prudent about it, so we don't penalize drivers for something that's the fault of a cyclist.

For the record, I have had my share of run-ins with drivers, while riding my bicycle. I'm a Lance "wannabe". I clip in. I wear a helmet. I wear the silly spandex kit. I have had soda bottles, coins (mostly handfuls of pennies), trash, and cigarette butts thrown at me. I have been yelled at, honked at, and sworn at (for a while I thought my name was "get your ass on the sidewalk") on so many occasions, I wouldn't attempt to count. Yet I still ride (this year, over 3000 miles). This is the whole rotten apple thing. You get a few drivers that do some really stupid things, and the rest try to give you plenty of room.

I mitigate some of the risk by riding defensively. I don't give drivers the opportunity to hit me. I ride a lot of suburban and rural roads, which by nature are less trafficked. If a car is coming from behind me and another car is oncoming on a two-lane road, I take the lane to prevent the car behind me from passing. I use hand signals to let cars know what I'm doing, and if I have one stuck behind me on a curve in the road, I'll wave them around when it's clear to go. OK, I blow stop signs when there are no cars. I ride two abreast. I ride at breakneck speeds down hills (whee!).

Down to brass tacks
1. The government shouldn't force me to wear a helmet. I agree, but I choose to because I've done the risk analysis and figured it's worth the expense and since I've forgone hair, it doesn't mess with my 'do.
2. There should be stronger penalties for drivers that though neglect or malice, severely injure or kill cyclists. They should be made an example of (just like texting drivers have been of late).
3. If you don't think you need a helmet, then you probably don't.

My wife was born with exotropia (weak muscles in her eye) that prevent her from watching 3D TV or movies, you insensitive clod! A few surgeries when she was a child improved it, but not to the point where she had binocular vision. The sad fact is that when she was in debate in high school, she got lower scores because she wasn't looking at the judges (insensitive clods!).

In 26 years, I've worked for 6 organizations and have held a variety of positions from server admin to senior developer. So loyalty means a lot to me.

Certain factors have to weigh in to the desire to make a change, because the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

Adequate challenge - I have to feel that I am challenged. I could never be a button pusher, I have to feel that I'm utilizing my skills and constantly learning and developing new skills. Do I get to use new, cool technologies or are we in the dark ages? I have told nearly every manager, director, and

o Job satisfaction - Do I like my job or dread waking up in the morning because I know I have to go back to that place?

o How I was treated by the company - Do they treat me well? Are there perks like working at home a day or two a week? Does the company constantly screw with their employees? Do they work me like a dog or respect me enough to allow me to retain (some) sanity? Do they respect their employees?

o Stability of the company / profitability - How stable is the organization? Are they going to be here tomorrow or are they slashing everything to try to stay in business? Is senior management accessible and open to the state of the company? Is management properly involved?

o Salary - I like money. I would like to have a million dollars, take it all in singles, put it in a pool, and take a swim. If I have to sell my soul and work like a dog for an idiot boss in a crappy company, it's not worth it.

o Other factors - Commute, perks like flexible schedule, work from home, vacation, and decent hardware (like a good laptop).

Consider what your dream job is. Is your dream job the place you are at or the place that is recruiting you? Is the new job a stepping stone to greater things or just a lateral change? Can you make your existing place of work your dream job?

At the end of the day, the person you work for is you. Loyalty is important, but you don't need to stay so loyal as to stunt your career. Consider your options carefully. Talk to management, see what kind of plans they have for you. If you aren't satisfied, then the decision is easier to make.

Good luck to you in your decision.

So let me get this straight. The US sends jobs overseas to India when we have high unemployment. Wouldn't the country be better served by using domestic talent, allowing them to spend their hard earned money in our stale economy? Perhaps we need a domestic policy that gives priority for the US government to give jobs to qualified Americans. Make any contractor do the same.

Take a step further, kill the outsourcing bug by offering companies tax incentives to hire domestic talent. I'm sure there isn't a dearth of talent or people that want jobs within our borders.

When I look at version releases like 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0, I think of these as major game changing releases that introduce new features, better performance and compatibility. If you assume that these are big releases, then it becomes prohibitive to small teams like mine that support 20+ ASP.NET websites to fully vet out the new release and ensure compatibility. If Mozilla is just trying to artificially keep their product fresh by releasing 5.0 as an incremental upgrade, and not bringing anything new or greatly improved to the table, then it's just an annoyance that can be more easily dealt with.

Regardless, on my systems, I'll take the wait-and-see approach, let the rest of the world deal with the problems and wait for my favorite addons to be updated before I upgrade.

... Not to mention, potential HIPAA issues.

Working in IT for 25+ years now, I know working with IT can sometimes be difficult. When I get requests like this, my first reaction is to work with the customer to establish need, ROI, and other requirements. Most likely, your IT department probably has the resources to make this work without much expense at all (i.e., small VM) and could look at your situation and apply a solution that benefits your entire organization rather than just one or two people. Frankly, I would make you take it off the network and provide a solution that IT controlled. Regardless of what you say is on the box, how do I know that you aren't running some warez or porn farm or hosting some video game server? Your job is to head your clinical division within your organization, not implement solutions on the same shared network that everyone in your organization would use.

The IT Tech is giving you a bigger break than I would give. Running it up the chain to his management would likely result in a big fat NO from the CIO.

We need the Knight Industries Two Thousand and Michael Knight.

KITT can leap over hazards (Turbo boost)
Has a supercomputer built in
Voice (Anharmonic) Synthesizer - nasal voice that is multilingual and can emulate other sounds
Alpha circuit to allow the computer to self drive
Pyroclastic Lamination - resists heat up to 800F
0-60 in 2 seconds
Anamorphic Equalizer - cool red lights in the front that give the car x-ray as well as infrared vision

Way too many more to list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KITT#Features

Anyone with the number for Knight Industries should call the Pentagon